California’s Legislature has passed a resolution in favor of eliminating non consensual “corrective” surgeries on the genitals of intersex children.

The surgeries are often medically unnecessary, and are framed as “social emergencies” when they’re physically and emotionally damaging instead, nonprofit organization interACT Advocates for Intersex Youth said. The petition called the practice a human rights violation, reported USA Today.

Intersex patients are also often lied to about the cause of their surgeries.Executive Director of interACT Advocates for Intersex Youth Kimberly Zieselman was told that she needed an operation to remove cancer at 15, but found out over two decades later when looking at her medical records that it actually was to remove internal testes.

"It means for the very first time a U.S. legislative body has affirmatively recognized that intersex children deserve dignity and the right to make decisions about their own bodies – just like everyone else," she said.

(WB) Over the past several decades, the intersex community has been working to pass legislation that would protect intersex infants from early surgical interventions, and right now, a step toward acknowledgement is on the horizon with California’s SCR-110.